Instinctively I dislike the option of boat turnbacks. Towing people away from Australia when they are attempting a perilous journey in order to seek asylum smacks of cruelty. Such action dishonours our past commitments to compassionate welcome and violates our international treaty obligations. Also, I don’t want the Australian Labor party to ape the Abbott government’s secretive and mean policies on asylum seekers and refugees.

Given this, how can I get my head – and heart – around the Labor party’s decision at its national conference to refuse to rule out boat turnbacks?

History provides a good starting point. Labor in government mishandled policy on asylum seekers. Some of these mistakes had disastrous consequences: children locked up in detention, people left stuck and hopeless in offshore processing, and desperate people dying horrible deaths at sea uncomfortably close to our shores.

Labor took a first and important step toward regaining its credibility and integrity this past weekend by acknowledging its errors. Opposition leader Bill Shorten baldly stated that Labor had made mistakes when it was last in government. Former immigration minister Tony Burke spoke movingly of his sorrow at the loss of 33 lives at sea in the four months he held the portfolio.

Have they said enough? Probably not. Children Labor put in detention have been abused. Women Labor put in detention have been sexually assaulted. Two men Labor sent to Manus Island have died. Riots, mental illness and suicide attempts are the consequences of Labor’s decision to re-open Nauru and Manus Island.

The Abbott government deserves credit for getting most of the children out of detention, but in the main the Coalition has continued to force even harsher and hopeless conditions on people in Australian-run offshore detention centres. Until Labor openly owns up to the grave consequences of their actions in office it will be difficult for the opposition to hold the government to account for their own terrible results.

Nonetheless, Labor at its national conference showed a few rare qualities in politics – namely, humility, and an ability to honestly face the truth that its underestimation of pull factors and its inability to disrupt the people smugglers’ trade resulted in hundreds of deaths.

However, Labor must resist the argument that the Abbott government’s approach to asylum seekers is humane because people are “no longer” dying at sea. The Coalition cloaks its own cruelty in compassionate language to make itself look and feel better: we’ve turned back the boats, we’re saving people’s lives, we’re so humane!

There is nothing humane about one of the wealthiest countries in the world slashing its refugee intake.

To listen to the Coalition you’d think the people towed back to Indonesia or Vietnam, or anywhere else, were being put up in nice hotels and allowed to live in relative comfort while they patiently wait their time in an orderly queue. Hardly. Turn back policy may stop the boats but it doesn’t stop the suffering: it simply displaces it. Without a regional resettlement program in partnership with our neighbours, turn backs are just sending people back to face other desperate circumstances, or to make another desperate decision to board a boat going somewhere else.

There is nothing humane about one of the wealthiest countries in the world slashing its refugee intake. There is nothing humane about providing sub-par medical care to people in detention. There is nothing humane about muzzling advocates, doctors, teachers and aid workers with threats of jail if they speak about what they witness in detention centres. And there is nothing humane about our government spending more than five times the amount on offshore processing than the UNHCR spends in all of south-east Asia.

My instinctive dislike for boat turnbacks aside, I recognise the tactic in and of itself is neither humane nor inhumane, but the context is what makes it so. The Abbott government has not turned back vast numbers of boats, but still promotes the tactic as a prominent part of its overall approach to asylum seekers. The government’s context includes vilification (illegal arrivals), suspicion (might they be terrorists? might they cause traffic congestion?), secrecy (we don’t comment on on-water matters), cruelty and military defence against a perceived threat (Operation Sovereign Borders).

That’s why Labor’s policy response to its mistakes, as well as to the mistakes made by the Abbott government, must be judged in its totality. Labor did not just commit to using boat turn backs where it is “safe to do so”, but it also pledged not return people to source countries and to provide full details of turn backs to the public. Labor promised to double the refugee intake, propelling Australia to the second largest in terms of humanitarian numbers and the largest per capita in the world.

Labor vowed that the UN High Commissioner on Refugees will oversee and sign off on all refugee processing. Labor committed to providing $450m for the UNHCR in our region. Labor will remove temporary protection visas. Labor will put in place independent oversight of Manus Island and Nauru and create an independent children’s monitor with statutory powers to take legal action.

The steps Labor outlined this weekend, if enacted, would mark Australia not as a selfish, xenophobic, petulant nation but as becoming a more mature, responsible and compassionate global citizen. There are significant problems that Labor hasn’t yet addressed, including what to do with the people languishing in offshore detention, or whether to keep the secrecy provisions in the Border Force Act.

But Labor has started the policy process openly and honestly and with the proposition that it can stop the boats and – at the same time – deliver a more compassionate and equitable solution for asylum seekers in our region.

For Bill Shorten, it is an enormous political gamble. For the sake of our shared humanity, I hope it pays off.

Comments

Kristina Keneally's detailed, written opinion on border protection

Instinctively I dislike the option of boat turnbacks. Towing people away from Australia when they are attempting a perilous journey in order to seek asylum smacks of cruelty. Such action dishonours our past commitments to compassionate welcome and violates our international treaty obligations. Also, I don’t want the Australian Labor party to ape the Abbott government’s secretive and mean policies on asylum seekers and refugees.

Given this, how can I get my head – and heart – around the Labor party’s decision at its national conference to refuse to rule out boat turnbacks?

History provides a good starting point. Labor in government mishandled policy on asylum seekers. Some of these mistakes had disastrous consequences: children locked up in detention, people left stuck and hopeless in offshore processing, and desperate people dying horrible deaths at sea uncomfortably close to our shores.

Labor took a first and important step toward regaining its credibility and integrity this past weekend by acknowledging its errors. Opposition leader Bill Shorten baldly stated that Labor had made mistakes when it was last in government. Former immigration minister Tony Burke spoke movingly of his sorrow at the loss of 33 lives at sea in the four months he held the portfolio.

Have they said enough? Probably not. Children Labor put in detention have been abused. Women Labor put in detention have been sexually assaulted. Two men Labor sent to Manus Island have died. Riots, mental illness and suicide attempts are the consequences of Labor’s decision to re-open Nauru and Manus Island.

The Abbott government deserves credit for getting most of the children out of detention, but in the main the Coalition has continued to force even harsher and hopeless conditions on people in Australian-run offshore detention centres. Until Labor openly owns up to the grave consequences of their actions in office it will be difficult for the opposition to hold the government to account for their own terrible results.

Nonetheless, Labor at its national conference showed a few rare qualities in politics – namely, humility, and an ability to honestly face the truth that its underestimation of pull factors and its inability to disrupt the people smugglers’ trade resulted in hundreds of deaths.

However, Labor must resist the argument that the Abbott government’s approach to asylum seekers is humane because people are “no longer” dying at sea. The Coalition cloaks its own cruelty in compassionate language to make itself look and feel better: we’ve turned back the boats, we’re saving people’s lives, we’re so humane!

There is nothing humane about one of the wealthiest countries in the world slashing its refugee intake.

To listen to the Coalition you’d think the people towed back to Indonesia or Vietnam, or anywhere else, were being put up in nice hotels and allowed to live in relative comfort while they patiently wait their time in an orderly queue. Hardly. Turn back policy may stop the boats but it doesn’t stop the suffering: it simply displaces it. Without a regional resettlement program in partnership with our neighbours, turn backs are just sending people back to face other desperate circumstances, or to make another desperate decision to board a boat going somewhere else.

There is nothing humane about one of the wealthiest countries in the world slashing its refugee intake. There is nothing humane about providing sub-par medical care to people in detention. There is nothing humane about muzzling advocates, doctors, teachers and aid workers with threats of jail if they speak about what they witness in detention centres. And there is nothing humane about our government spending more than five times the amount on offshore processing than the UNHCR spends in all of south-east Asia.

My instinctive dislike for boat turnbacks aside, I recognise the tactic in and of itself is neither humane nor inhumane, but the context is what makes it so. The Abbott government has not turned back vast numbers of boats, but still promotes the tactic as a prominent part of its overall approach to asylum seekers. The government’s context includes vilification (illegal arrivals), suspicion (might they be terrorists? might they cause traffic congestion?), secrecy (we don’t comment on on-water matters), cruelty and military defence against a perceived threat (Operation Sovereign Borders).

That’s why Labor’s policy response to its mistakes, as well as to the mistakes made by the Abbott government, must be judged in its totality. Labor did not just commit to using boat turn backs where it is “safe to do so”, but it also pledged not return people to source countries and to provide full details of turn backs to the public. Labor promised to double the refugee intake, propelling Australia to the second largest in terms of humanitarian numbers and the largest per capita in the world.

Labor vowed that the UN High Commissioner on Refugees will oversee and sign off on all refugee processing. Labor committed to providing $450m for the UNHCR in our region. Labor will remove temporary protection visas. Labor will put in place independent oversight of Manus Island and Nauru and create an independent children’s monitor with statutory powers to take legal action.

The steps Labor outlined this weekend, if enacted, would mark Australia not as a selfish, xenophobic, petulant nation but as becoming a more mature, responsible and compassionate global citizen. There are significant problems that Labor hasn’t yet addressed, including what to do with the people languishing in offshore detention, or whether to keep the secrecy provisions in the Border Force Act.

But Labor has started the policy process openly and honestly and with the proposition that it can stop the boats and – at the same time – deliver a more compassionate and equitable solution for asylum seekers in our region.

For Bill Shorten, it is an enormous political gamble. For the sake of our shared humanity, I hope it pays off.